The Lebap Regional Museum standing in Shaidakov street is a must-visit sight already for its building. A unique Shia mosque built in the early 20th century by an Iranian merchant named Hajy Malik and was turned into a museum by the Soviets in the 1960s. It’s a brick structure that stands in a small park just to the north of the Lebap Restaurant, with a rectangular tower and two brick minarets and it may become a mosque again once the museum moves to new bases that were being built opposite the train station at the time of writing. Its sides are open by arches separated with fluted columns. The mosque was worldly during the Soviet period and became a museum in 1967. Many older locals still regard it as a holy building and tell a prayer when they pass by. 

Inside the museum the most noteworthy section is the ethnography section, including a fully furnished yurt and a diorama of a silversmith workshop and the requisite room full of quietly disintegrating taxidermy. The ethnographic exhibitions include apart from a walk-through yurt, a life-sized model of a traditional Turkmen courtyard, complete with stuffed sheep, and collections of silver jewelry, musical instruments, and even 19th-century agricultural implements. The archaeological section is most valuable in displaying models and photographs of some of the main sites of the region, such as the Astana-Baba and Darganata mausolea together with the madrasa of Idris Baba. The natural history exhibits are intended to give a taste of the natural wealth of the three nature reserves lying within the Lebap Region, but attempt to do this largely showing stuffed animals. The 2nd floor is surreal, with displays including randomly collected coins from foreign currencies (most long since replaced by the euro), two enormous cakes, a collection of children’s clothing, few Berdymukhamedov hagiographies and a collection of wares produced by the Charjev Leased Chemical Enterprise. There are cases devoted to the main industries of the town, including the production of silk, cotton and licorice. Other displays include samovars, modern banknotes from across the region and tsarist coins.